Internet protocol multipoint conferencing systems offer a variety of user features, but not all conferencing systems are capable of displaying the real-time status, attributes, and corresponding quality of service of one or more connections in a conference. The attributes include information such as the internet protocol (IP) addresses or identities of the parties in the call. The status of a conference includes status information such as whether or not a party has joined or left the conference and the times for these events. Quality of service information includes quality information such as the jitter, loss, and delay of each of the connecting parties in the conference. Monitoring can be accomplished using several known approaches including:
Call data record retrieval—Some conferencing units store detailed information about calls in call data logs, but the information is not available and cannot be compiled until after a conference call is completed. In these systems, the advantages of real-time conference status monitoring is not available.
Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) sniffing—RTP is a protocol commonly used by IP multipoint conferencing systems and contains information about quality of service, but the RTP stream does not contain the signature information necessary to identify it with a particular connection of a conferencing party.
Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) monitoring and display—RTCP packets contain session description and information on a media stream that can be used to monitor the real-time caller information and quality of voice conversation in a conference, however, not all multipoint conferencing systems support RTCP.
Common to all of these systems, despite differing hardware configurations and conferencing features, is a control protocol for engaging and disengaging calls and an internet protocol for transporting a media stream, typically RTP.
Although some options for monitoring the status, attributes, and quality of service of conference calls are available, a need exists for real-time monitoring supported by a variety of conferencing systems.